Blue Funk
by Miss Poisonous
Summary: Brennan lies awake, 'mulling over' her reasons for refusing Sweets' request. Set after 'The Princess and the Pear'.


Wow, I forgot how much I enjoy writing for Bones. Which I don't own, by the way, or write professionally for, I'm just having fun with Hart Hanson's creations. Yay! But since we're on the topic, if Hart or his lawyers are reading, I work very cheap and I'm open to negotiation. I also have $5 in my wallet and a lot of delicious home baking if you're looking to sell. Think about it.

This is set between 'The Princess and the Pear' and the following episode. I _suppose_ it contains spoilers for the former, but nothing you wouldn't see on a trailer. Reviews are snuggled and loved and given a _very_ good home.

* * *

Something was bothering Brennan. She couldn't stop thinking about it. It was keeping her awake, and it'd been a long time since anything bothered her enough to have her in a blue funk. She'd never understood that expression, blue funk. It sounded sort of appealing to her, like something Angela might try to convince her to try. Like a dance club, perhaps with mood lighting and funk music, or maybe a cocktail. A sambuca cocktail. Did those exist? Anyway, it was bugging her. Bugging, not buzzing, as Booth had been so eager to point out to her.

She couldn't stop thinking about Sweets. Oh, that sounded like she meant it in a sexual way, which she didn't. At all, on any planet, seeing as Booth seemed to think behaviour differed from planet to planet, as though life on other planets was a given. Well, if it was, she would never think of Sweets in a sexual manner even if they all lived on Jupiter. She knew most people would say Mars when speculating about living on another planet, because of the number of expeditions to explore the planet, and possibly also it's proximity to Earth. But Jupiter had always been her favourite planet, probably because Juno, the wife of Jupiter, had been her favourite Greek Goddess as a child. She didn't believe in the Greek Gods, of course, and Booth would probably say something about how Juno was extremely controlling and bossy, like he seemed to think Brennan herself was. No doubt he would also have some moral objection to the fact that Juno was also Jupiter's sister, to which she would argue that it was a story and made for good dramatic tension, which would no doubt lead to another car ride of huffy silence from him and probing that had nothing to do with psychology from her.

But that was all besides the point. This was the reason she was lying awake in the first place, because her brain wouldn't shut down and stop thinking. That was one of the drawbacks of having an exceptionally active brain, she supposed, that hers had so much capacity for thought, analytical and reasoning, that it needed more time to 'mull things over' as Booth might say. Which reminded her, she was pretty certain she'd figured out the appropriate use of, as he called them, 'air quotes', when she was writing yesterday. Or it might have been two days ago now, depending on what time it was. How late was she staying awake? Anyway, she figured out that one used 'air quotes' at times when one would put the words into single quotation marks in a written document, like when she was quoting something Booth had told her that she didn't quite understand, like 'air quotes'.

Brennan was swiftly discovering just how hard it was to keep her mind on one thing when she was lying in bed, feeling like she should be asleep, but too awake mentally to try. Still, she was certain the main reason for her insomnia was her exchange with Dr Sweets not three days ago. Well, it could be three days ago now. What was the time, anyway?

"Can I call you Bones?" he had asked her. Perhaps not in those exact words, but that was the crux of the query. Frankly she thought it was ridiculous when in books and films people were show to have remembered what other people said word for word. That was only possible when the words had been memorised from a script, which they obviously had, but in her opinion detracted from the plausibility of the scenario. Unless of course the characters had eidetic memories, like the male lead in a show Angela had made her watch when she found out Booth had compared them to the two central characters. It had been a fairly interesting concept, if a little paranoid for her liking. She imagined Hodgins would be a fan. But she failed to see the likeness between herself and Booth and the two FBI agents, excepting the fact that they were both partners. If he had meant that the woman was a doctor and a sceptic, she would have to point out to him some time that although she did consider herself an empirical scientist, which by definition required a certain amount of scepticism, the fields of pathology and forensic anthropology were quite far removed.

She had refused his request. Sweets', that is. At the time, the decision hadn't even required thinking about, although she could see the logic in his reasoning that lead him to make the request. She supposed, if she considered the nickname to be special, such an event might earn the privilege of using it, but she couldn't even entertain the idea. The prospect of Sweets calling her 'Bones' was ridiculous.

Booth, of course, had not earned the use of the nickname by any particular traumatic bonding. He had more or less worn her protests down by unflappable persistence. She recalled the way she had objected when he first called her 'Bones'; objected vehemently, if she remembered. She smiled to herself at the thought of their first meeting, how furious she had been with him when he had addressed her as 'Bones'. It had infuriated her, his cocky, self-assured grin, too good to use her real name and title, to acknowledge the value of her assistance, to even give her credit when she practically solved the case for him. Inexplicably, she couldn't even muster an echo of the anger she had felt then, remembering the situation now. She smiled again, rolling over to gaze at the ceiling, twisting herself in the sheets even more.

She had been righteously angry when he had pulled the Homeland Security stunt on her upon her return from Guatemala, too. She chuckled softly at the thought of herself charging away down the street, forcing him to chase her. Well, she hadn't exactly forced him to chase her; she had been genuinely trying to get as far away from him as possible at the time. She could have screamed at the when he called her Bones in front of the airport security, who had likely already thought her to be a crazy woman. She understood now, she thought, with a certain amount of pride, what sort of behaviour lead people to believe she was crazy. Of course, other people didn't always see crazy as being mentally disturbed, but often doing something outside the accepted social boundaries. Angela, for example, had often called her crazy for not pursuing a sexual relationship with Booth.

Why was it that she now allowed Booth to call her Bones? Why had the name, if it could be called that, stopped grating on her nerves and started to be comfortable? Why did it seem stranger to her now to think of him calling her by her real name and title than it did to hear him call her 'Bones'?

It was simple, really, the reason she couldn't abide the thought of Sweets calling her Bones. Her logical brain had figured it out long ago. It was because it was Booth's name for her. It didn't sound right coming from anyone else. He was the only one who was allowed to call her that, and she instinctively knew – though she wasn't comfortable basing her reasoning off instinct – that he would be very angry if Sweets started to use the nickname too. It was like…she struggled to find an appropriate comparison. It was like Angela calling Hodgins 'Hodgy' – which Brennan noticed she did not do any more. It was like Daisy Wick calling Sweets 'Sweetie-pie' – whether it was a common endearment or a rather annoying twist on his surname, Brennan wasn't certain. It was like her father calling her mother 'Beautiful' as though it were a name and not an adjective – much like Booth turned the noun 'bones' into his own name for herself.

She understood that. She understood that fine – it was what Booth called her, and it sounded strange for anyone else to use it. What she couldn't seem to figure out no matter how long she lay in bed thinking about it, was why he had his own name for her in the first place. Why the infuriating nickname had morphed into an exclusive endearment. Why it felt like something private between the two of them that no one else could share. Why it felt so intimate that even when she indulged in the odd sexual fantasy about Booth, in them he was always calling her 'Bones'.

Brennan sat up, stretching, disentangling herself from the covers. It was getting her nowhere, mulling things over like this. She would simply have to ask Booth next time she saw him. He was the one who knew about this sort of thing, and it was his nickname, so he was sure to understand the meaning behind it, if there was any at all.

She leaned over to her bedside table, finally checking the time. 4.37am. Well, she obviously wasn't going to get any sleep until Booth had explained this to her. She would wait until it was late enough that she could call him without having to listen to him complain for the rest of the day about her having woken him up. In the meantime, she might as well get out of bed and see if she could make a 'blue funk' with sambuca and champagne and a box of glace cherries.

* * *

I don't know what is with me and making Brennan try strange alcohol concoctions, but hey, whatever works for her!


End file.
